


oh my god they were roommates

by absopositivelutely



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, It's mostly fluff though, Pining, Roommates, also lots of pining, and i just...really like vines man, i love undercover jake angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 11:37:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18520717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absopositivelutely/pseuds/absopositivelutely
Summary: “Absolutely not,” Amy declares. “You, Jake Peralta, are not going to move in with me.”So he moves in with her.





	oh my god they were roommates

**Author's Note:**

> hi so this was just an idea i had because i was watching vine compilations, as one does, and this kinda,,, happened. enjoy!!

It always is an unsettling feeling when Amy realizes she knows exactly what Jake is going to say before he says it.

She thinks it’s maybe a combination of her Very Certified Detective Skills, his oddly expressive face, and, though she would rather die than voice this, their friendship. Their competitive, not-official friendship. To be fair, they’ve known each other for almost five years before the whole friendship thing sort of just happened. Maybe it’s not too hard to admit to being friends with him.

It’s definitely not too hard to admit that she does not want to live with him.

“Absolutely not,” Amy declares. She leans forward across their desks and jabs her finger in his direction. “You, Jake Peralta, are not going to move in with me.”

“C’mon, Amy,” he says, that easy, _infuriating_ grin playing at his lips. “It’s perfect. Your apartment is dangerously expensive for one person, I need a new place to live, you don’t want to live with some random person, and I am a pleasure to be around!”

“Actually, _I_ was ‘a pleasure to have in class,’” Amy counters. “And I happen to know the reason you need a new place to live is because you are in crushing debt. How are you supposed to pay your half of rent?”

She crosses her arms and tries her best to glare at him. Jake copies her expression, though she can see him desperately trying not to laugh. “Amyyyyyyyy.”

“I’ll think about it,” she answers. She’s not considering the possibility of accepting, of course not, but somehow she can’t bring herself to tell him no. She blinks and there is a moment where she thinks that maybe she could be okay with waking up to find Jake eating sugar-coated cereal at her kitchen table, or coming home to find him watching _Die Hard,_ or trying to cook and having him take over while she watches and tastes the food, or—

She’s not going to think about it, she’s decided.

 

* * *

 

_“Hola mamá,”_ Amy says, smiling at the grainy image of her mother on the phone. “How was your day?”

“Oh, it was good, _”_ her mom replies, beaming. There’s a child’s giggle in the background and Amy can’t help the grin that breaks out on her face.

“Hmm, is that a Sebastian I hear?” she coos, and the camera shifts from her mother’s face to reveal one of her brothers, Luis, sitting on the couch with a Sebastian-shaped pile of blankets on his lap. “But where is he?”

Luis laughs, poking at the blanket and informing Amy that there is no Sebastian to be found there. They go on like that for a while, back and forth between Amy, Luis, and Camila, until Sebastian finally throws the blanket dramatically over his head and announces that they’re all silly, he’s been right there the whole time.

“Anyways,” Camila says, turning the camera away from her brother and her nephew. “How have you been, _mija?”_

Amy shrugs. Life has not been very eventful recently. She tells her mother about a breakthrough in a cold case, a party at Holt’s, a bet she lost, and she wonders when Jake Peralta managed to quietly become a part of her life.

Speaking of which.

“Jake’s thinking about moving soon,” she says. He’s Jake to her now, she notices idly, when did that happen, when did he become Jake and not Peralta? She clears her throat and focuses back on her mother’s face on the screen. “He’s really not doing too great with money right now. His latest idea has been to move in with me.”

_“Tía_ Amy!” Sebastian yells in the background, and Camila flips the camera so she can talk to her nephew. She knows that look on her mother’s face, though, and knows that she isn’t done with this conversation just yet.

She should visit them soon, Amy thinks. She misses her nephew. And her brothers, and her parents, and everyone. Whenever she calls her mom, there’s always other family members over. Her own apartment feels suddenly very empty.

“Well, Amy,” Camila starts, after Sebastian has finished his monologue on the merits of Hot Wheels cars. “Jake is a very good friend of yours, and you should help your friend out.”

Amy’s too shocked by the implications of this suggestion to bother correcting her mom on the nature of her relationship with Jake. She usually prefers the term coworkers-with-a-rivalry.

She’s working on shortening that down. It’s a handful.

_“Mamá!”_ she gasps. “This is Jake we’re talking about! You actually want me to _live_ with him?”

“He’s your friend,” Camila says, in that calm all-knowing voice her mother uses to fix all her problems. “You know what to do, _mija.”_

Amy sighs. She cannot believe she’s actually considering this. Jake, human disaster, living with her, human file cabinet.

God, she needs a new binder.

 

* * *

 

It’s just her and Jake in the break room, eating pizza they’d gotten from across the street, and Amy decides that now is as good a moment as ever.

“Fine,” she says, dropping her gaze to her pizza to hide her small smile. “Fine, okay. You can live with me. But we need a set of rules.”

Jake lights up, grinning so widely Amy can’t help but return it. It’s ridiculous, really. Amy Santiago from a year ago would’ve had a meltdown if she’d heard that she would be living with Jake Peralta. Amy Santiago right now is kind of on the verge of a meltdown, actually. Because Jake’s a mess. The state of his desk is enough to tell her about the state of his house. Plus he definitely can’t afford this.

Amy takes a deep breath, imagines a shelf lined with binders in color order filled with neatly labeled cascading tabs, and pretends that she is calm enough to deal with this situation. “Okay. Rule number one. We don’t tell anyone at work about this.”

“Easy,” Jake scoffs. He glances at the window to the break room. Amy’s been considering closing the blinds, but that would be too suspicious. His gaze flickers over to the unlocked door instead before he looks back at Amy. “If anyone comes in here, we’re talking about the double homicide on 7th and Park. And by anyone, I mostly mean Charles.”

Jake pulls a face, nose all scrunched up and eyebrows pushed together, and Amy is suddenly reminded of his expression after Charles had announced that he could hear wedding bells upon her first meeting with Jake. She nods quickly. “Don’t need a repeat of our first day. Um, okay. Still rule one, but sub-clause A—”

“Is that even a word?” Jake interjects. “Sub-clause,” he pronounces slowly.

“Rule number two, don’t question my list system and I won’t question your orange soda in cereal thing,” Amy interrupts him. “Sub-clause A of rule number two, this applies to any and all differences we have. Sub-clause Roman numeral one of sub-clause A of rule number two, an exception can be made if one party thinks they might actually die if differences stated above continue on.”

Jake stares at her blankly. Amy sighs. “So, agree to disagree.”

“Sub-clause B, unless it’s political,” Jake adds, and Amy actually laughs.

“Now you get it.”

Jake nods solemnly. “Memorizing the Santiago System is something I take very seriously as a future member of a Santiago Household. Oh, no, that sounded like we were getting married. Oh _no_ I sound like Charles! Okay, anyways, go back to sub-clause A of rule number one.”

“Right,” Amy says, and despite herself she’s smiling. “Sub-clause A of rule number one. We can’t always leave work together because then people will notice. Sub-clause B: similarly, we can’t talk about things like getting groceries that would suggest we’re living together.”

Jake raises a finger and she nods at him to go ahead and speak. If only he would do this more often. Maybe they should’ve moved in together a long time ago.

“I agree that we’re not going to tell everyone, because they’ll make a huge deal out of it, but how long until we do?” he asks.

“We can tell them once either you or I get a significant other,” Amy says decisively, and it doesn’t escape her notice that Jake is avoiding her gaze. She decides to ignore that for now. If she thinks about it too much, she’ll _definitely_ end up having to dedicate a tab to that.

“Cool,” Jake says, “cool, cool, cool, no doubt no doubt no doubt.”

They shake hands, and Amy slides her backup _backup_ set of keys across the table. Jake hooks the keyring around his finger and spins them around, promptly sending them flying across the room.

She absolutely cannot believe she is doing this for real. Or as Jake would say, for _realz._

Amy really hates herself sometimes.

 

* * *

 

“Why do you have five _Die Hard_ posters but the worst bed known to mankind?” Amy demands, finally shoving the mattress through the door and pushing it to the ground. She flops down on it and grimaces when the springs squeak in protest.

“We’ve established this,” Jake replies. “I am in crushing debt.” He gives her a pair of jazz hands before throwing himself down on the mattress next to her. The springs shudder violently and Jake winces, grinning sheepishly at Amy. “Yeah, okay, so I might need a new mattress.”

“You know what? Maybe I’ll just never step foot into your room again,” Amy says, standing back up and delicately picking her way across the floor, avoiding the letters scattered everywhere from when she’d accidentally knocked over a box filled to the brim with them. Admittedly, this mess is her fault, but _technically_ it’s Jake’s fault that he has a box filled with unopened mail in the first place, so.

“Will you _please_ just use the mattress I already have?” Amy asks, gesturing at the bed tucked in the corner of her guest room. “I know it’s smaller than yours, but yours is—Jake, it’s really awful.”

A grin splits Jake’s face suddenly and he struggles to hide it. Amy narrows her eyes at him. That can never mean anything good. She dives onto the bed (her bed, the one that was originally in the guest bedroom, thank you very much) and grabs a pillow, getting ready to either throw it at him or use it to deflect whatever he’s planning to throw at her. “Jacob Peralta—”

“Chill,” he says easily, walking over to her, taking the pillow with one hand, and grabbing her hand with the other. He pulls her up into a standing position. She’s not entirely sure why she lets him. “I’ll use your guest bed—”

“Oh thank _god_ —”

“—but you have to get rid of that.” He waves vaguely at his old mattress. “By yourself. The only help I will give you is if you choose to throw it out the window.” He smirks smugly at her and flops onto the very comfortable guest bed. Amy thinks he’s probably lucky if he’s not dead by the end of next week.

“I will throw _you_ out the window,” she hisses, picking up one of his rolled up _Die Hard_ posters and threatening to whack him with it. Jake laughs, putting his hands up and getting up from the bed to help her with his mattress.

Okay, fine, maybe she could live with this. At the very least, he makes her laugh, so that’s something.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Santi—Amy.”

Jake is sitting on the counter, feet swinging and knocking lightly against the cabinets, and for some reason Amy doesn’t care even though she’s just cleaned the kitchen. She pours their tea into two mugs and dumps an ungodly amount of sugar into Jake’s (she doesn’t remember where she learned this, but somehow she knows exactly how Jake likes his tea), and hands Jake his Nakatomi Plaza mug, hopping up onto the counter next to him. She’s come this far, so Amy decides that the counters can always be cleaned again and pulls her feet up, resting her chin on her knees.

Jake keeps swinging his feet.

“Yeah?” she prompts, nodding at him to keep talking. He opens his mouth and closes it again, eyes flickering up and down and around the room, never settling on her.

“I…thanks,” he says, finally, his gaze resting on hers for a brief second before he looks back down at the mug cupped in his hands. “I’ve been living here for like, a week, and I haven’t said thank you. So. Thanks.”

“It’s, um, it’s actually kind of nice,” Amy admits. She keeps her gaze focused on her sock-covered feet, pulling her knees closer to her chest. “Um, you know I have a really big family.”

“Yeah,” Jake murmurs. He looks at her, then, and his eyes are bright with some unnamed emotion that neither of them acknowledge. Amy clears her throat and takes a sip of her tea.

“I—the house feels really empty sometimes, so it’s nice to have someone here.”

“Careful, Santiago, I think we might have to make a rule number three,” Jake says, turning and sitting cross-legged so he can face Amy. His grin doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “No matter what happens, you’re not allowed to fall in love with me.”

“Oh, shut up,” Amy says, rolling her eyes. Jake chuckles lightly and holds his mug out for a toast. She taps hers against his and raises her eyebrows. “What are we toasting for?”

“To not falling in love,” Jake says, and then immediately ducks when Amy chucks a dish towel at him. “To Amy being the bestest friend ever,” he corrects himself.

Her ears are burning.

_(she knows the look in his eyes, now. it’s the same as how he’d looked at her on that roof, tossing nuts at her and laughing more freely than she’s ever seen before.)_

“Bestest isn’t a word,” she corrects him, after a long pause. Jake snorts and looks away. Amy can still feel her ears burning. She resists the urge to tuck her hair back.

“I was being _nice,_ Amy, come on!”

“Not allowed to fall in love with me!” she reminds him, but then they’re both laughing and Jake throws the dish towel back at her and she wonders how she ever thought she would hate living with him.

 

* * *

 

There are pots clanging in the kitchen, and Amy’s alarms have not gone off yet.

She sits up rapidly, the panicked rush of blood roaring in her ears. And then she remembers that Jake lives in her apartment now, and random noises don’t always mean an intruder. Amy sighs, curling back up in bed and triple-checking that her three alarms are set to go off in thirty minutes.

Wait a second. Jake never wakes up before her. She’s on her feet less than a millisecond later, hands reaching blindly for her gun and badge. Maybe she can make it to Jake’s room without anyone seeing her. They sound like they’re in the kitchen, so she might actually have a chance. She’s halfway to her door when the door is thrown open.

“Amy Santiago!” Jake yells, beaming widely at her. Then he lets out a high-pitched scream.

“What?!” Amy all but shrieks. His eyes are wide and he points directly at her. She looks herself up and down to realize that her gun is aimed at him. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Why are you trying to kill me?” Jake asks, his voice still squeakier than usual.

She puts the gun down and runs a hand through her messy hair a little self-consciously. “I, uh. I thought someone broke into my—our apartment.”

“The sound of me making pancakes can’t be _that_ threatening,” Jake says, grinning slyly. “You, on the other hand, screamed twice and dropped the pan three times when you tried to make them yesterday for dinner.”

“Yeah, well, you never wake up this early!” Amy protests, ignoring his dig at her own cooking, because she really has no response to that. “So I thought there was no way it was you!”

“And you call yourself a detective,” Jake scoffs playfully. “Amy, it’s _tactical village day!”_

Tactical village. Of _course_ he’s up this early. He hasn’t stopped going on and on for the past month about how he’s going to set a new record. Amy sighs, turning off her alarms because there’s no point in going back to sleep now, and pulls her hair up in a ponytail. It occurs to her that despite having lived together for weeks now, they still haven’t really seen each other just out of bed. Amy always wakes up much too early for Jake to see her, and she’s always downstairs getting them bagels and coffee for breakfast when Jake gets up. But here they are. She notices a bit absentmindedly that she is wearing a pair of blue flannel pants very similar to Jake’s, and that they are both wearing too-big NYPD shirts that they’d probably gotten for free from a cop con years ago. Not that that matters or anything. She clears her throat and combs her fingers through her hair.

“Okay, well, what are you doing? Time to go! Cook the pancakes!” Amy says abruptly, clapping her hands together. “Can’t set a record if we’re late!”

She ushers him out of the room and tells him to finish with the pancakes while she showers. Her shower lasts thirty seconds longer than usual, which is definitely Jake’s fault for waking her up off schedule. Amy emerges from the bathroom with wet hair and a horrified expression when she sees that Jake hasn’t eaten yet.

“Jake!” she yelps, grabbing a plate and staring at him incredulously. “What are you _doing?”_

“Uh, waiting for you?” he says, sounding genuinely confused. “We never have breakfast together like roommates should. I’ll shower later.”

It’s Amy’s turn to be confused. She thinks about it for a couple more seconds as she cuts into her pancakes, and it occurs to her that Jake Peralta, her self-proclaimed Worst Enemy (minus the Vulture, obviously), has been a lot nicer recently. She gives him a tentative smile that he returns easily.

That is, until he flicks a Cheerio at her and grins even wider. “If we finish breakfast in five minutes and twenty two seconds, that gives us about ten minutes and fifty six seconds to get ready before we have to leave because it takes us three minutes and ten seconds to get the car out—”

“Shut up!” Amy laughs, picking up the Cheerio Jake had sent flying at her and tossing it back at him. “Do I really sound like that?”

“Just a little bit,” he says. “It’s part of your awkward charm.”

“Oh, be quiet.”

 

* * *

 

Of all the things that could’ve happened, this is the very last thing that Amy would’ve expected.

“Amy Santiago,” he says smoothly, and she feels like dying. In the good way, though.

“Teddy!” she beams, turning to him. “Hey! Oh my god, it’s been so long.”

Later, when they get into the car, Jake lets Amy drive back. He’s been oddly quiet since the rest of the squad left, though she chalks that up to being tired after their day at the tactical village. But when he gets into the passenger seat, he props up his elbows on the armrest between them and rests his chin on his fists.

“So, tell me about Teddy.”

She keeps her eyes steadily on the road and ignores whatever look Jake is giving her. It’s probably just curiosity, anyway. Plus she’s a good driver. That’s all there is to it.

“He’s nice,” Amy says, a little defensively. She doesn’t really know what she’s defending. “I told you we met at code camp.”

“Right,” Jake says slowly. “Aside from him being able to recite police codes perfectly, what else can he do?” Out of the corner of her eye, Amy catches him flush bright red. “I didn’t—not, like, you know. Not like _that._ ”

“Gross,” Amy informs him. “And I told you. Teddy’s nice.”

“And?”

“And I like him, Jake, what more do you need to know?”

She feels bad immediately. Amy knows Jake—as much as she pretends to not like him as a human being, she knows him well enough to catch the flash of Something in his eyes before he looks out the window. “Jake—”

“I was just wondering,” he says, too easily. “Are you gonna go on another date with him?”

Amy can count the number of times she’s made an impulsive decision on one hand. This is her fifth. “Yeah,” she says. Her eyes remain trained on the road. There’s a stop sign ahead. “I think I will.”

 

* * *

 

“How’s your date?”

“Fine,” Amy says, flashing Jake a smile. She chalks it up to residual happiness from said fine date. And the fact that the apartment is…clean? “Did you actually clean up like I told you to?”

“I mean, yeah,” Jake shrugs. He doesn’t look away from the TV. _Die Hard._ Contrary to popular belief, Jake doesn’t actually watch _Die Hard_ all that often. Amy’s only ever seen him watch it when he’s stressed.

“Rough case?” she asks him, nodding towards the TV. She can’t think of what case it could be, though.

“Oh, uh, no. Just felt like watching, I guess,” Jake says. He grins suddenly, all lopsided and boyish, and even before the punchline she knows is coming Amy feels herself smiling wider. “The stress of the cleaning got to me.”

“Well,” Amy says, hanging up her jacket and carefully positioning herself at the other end of the couch, legs folded under her as she pulls a pillow onto her lap and turns to Jake, “the least I can do is let you finish your movie, despite the fact that I have now seen _Die Hard_ five more times in the past month than I have wanted to.”

“Nah,” Jake says, reaching for the remote and turning the TV off. “I vote you tell me all about your date and I’ll respond like girls in the movies always do when their friend updates them on the hot gossip.” Amy grins, though she doesn’t really have any hot gossip to update him on. What she’s discovered recently is that Roommate Jake is much more tolerable than Bullpen Jake. Actually, now that she thinks about it, Bullpen Jake hasn’t been terrible lately either. Maybe it’s just Jake who’s getting better.

“It was fine,” Amy says, and she notices vaguely that she’s already said that. She can’t think of anything else to say. She searches fruitlessly for a synonym and can’t think of much more than _okay._ Satisfactory, perhaps, or adequate, but it sounds like she’s filing a report. Which doesn’t sound too far off coming from Teddy, at least. She imagines it for a second—him handing her a piece of paper after a date, _Rate your experience from 1 to 10_ written in bold at the top, probably in a serif font, like Georgia or Cambria. Amy covers up her snort with a cough. It’s best not to let Jake know about that thought, she decides.

 

* * *

 

“No _way,”_ a familiar voice shrieks, and Amy buries her face under a pillow and groans.

“Shut up,” she mumbles. The voice gasps loudly and she freezes, slowly lifting her head to look around. She is met with Charles, looking like he’s about to explode, and a sheepish Jake standing next to him. Amy openly stares at both of them for a beat. She’s pretty sure her jaw has actually dropped. _Focus, Santiago,_ she tells herself through the quickly rising panic.

“What are you _doing_ here?” she demands, sitting up rapidly and pretending like she’s in control of the situation. Which she is. Absolutely one hundred percent in control, that is.

“Jake gave me his address and his keys because I make him gourmet food when he’s sad!” Charles says, holding out a Tupperware like a sacrificial offering. It occurs to Amy that she probably does not look her best right now, and she runs a hand through her hair a bit self-consciously.

“Well,” Jake says, huffing out a breath. “Rip the band-aid off. Yes, Charles, me and Amy live together. And we fell asleep on the couch last night. That’s it.”

“If I’d known, Jakey, I would’ve made enough food for the both of you!” Charles exclaims, putting the Tupperware on the coffee table. Whatever’s inside it is suspiciously brown. Amy starts scripting an argument for Jake to take out the trash after Charles leaves. It occurs to her that it’s all terribly domestic and she scraps the argument immediately. Anyways, Jake seems to have managed to calm Charles down somewhat and has gotten him over to the door. Amy keeps her mouth shut until Charles is safely outside.

Jake looks at her sheepishly, cheeks flushed pink. She doesn’t read too much into that. Her face probably looks somewhat like his. “So I guess we’re official?”

“Don’t word it like that.”

He gets this sly grin on his face that Amy wants to hate. “Are we going steady?”

“Get out of my house,” Amy threatens, brandishing a pillow at him and laughing.

 

* * *

 

When they’d told the squad that they were living together (well, Charles broke the news the next day, and Amy had rolled her eyes and Jake had attempted to interrupt three times before giving up) Amy had expected a handful of married couple jokes, and then their apartment would be the designated Friendsgiving and Friendsmas dinner place, because those were the sorts of things she could have now.

What Amy had not expected was for the squad’s first time at the Santiago-Peralta apartment to be without Jake there. She supposes it’s technically just the Santiago apartment now, though Jake’s presence still makes itself known. His bed is unmade, blankets rumpled, a couple pillows on the floor. She knows he couldn’t sleep last night. Their favorite mugs are still sitting in the sink.

Charles looks like he might cry. Amy looks away. She can’t—won’t—let herself cry. Not yet.

To her surprise, it’s Rosa who speaks up first. “Hey. Peralta’s tough. He’ll be fine.”

“Yeah,” Amy agrees, hollowly. Gina nods her assent and picks up the empty cereal bowl on the table. Amy glances over and smiles despite herself.

It’s quiet, too quiet, without Jake there. They watch _Die Hard,_ Amy and Rosa and Gina and Charles all curled up on the couch. Amy tucks a blanket around herself. It smells like worn leather and sticky-sweet candy and she reminds herself that she will not cry.

 

* * *

 

“He told you, didn’t he,” Gina says.

Amy looks up from her computer to find Gina perched on Jake’s desk, arms crossed and eyebrows raised. “Sorry, what?”

Gina raises her eyebrows even higher than Amy thought was possible and glances around the bullpen. Rosa and Charles are out, and Holt is in his office, and Amy figures Terry will probably do her the courtesy of pretending not to hear. Gina seems to have come to the same conclusion, continuing on at a slightly lower volume. “Jake. He told you how he felt the night he left. Tell me I’m not wrong, because I never am.”

_(flickering orange light, the low hum of the city, jake watching her steadily. a handful of words that should not strike her as hard as they do. her voice stuck in her throat—not that she knows what to say, anyway.)_

“You knew?!” Amy demands, and okay, she’s maybe a little louder than she should be. “Why didn’t he—”

“You’re dating Teddy, why do you think?” Gina says flatly.

“But—before,” Amy insists. She thinks about a rooftop, cool night air, soft voices, the taste of peanuts. Everything feeling like something was supposed to—to fall into place, but it didn’t. Like an unfinished puzzle.

“You guys will figure it out,” Gina tells her, patting her on the shoulder. It’s less conciliatory than usual. “He’s coming back.”

And Amy doesn’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the way Gina says things like she knows everything there is to know in the world, or the earnest look in Jake’s eyes as he’d said goodbye, but for once she lets herself believe that life will be okay eventually.

 

* * *

 

“You good?” Teddy asks, arm slung around her shoulder. He leans forward to reach for—yup, the bottle says Pilsners. Amy isn’t sure why she even bothers checking anymore.

“Uh, yeah, I’m fine,” she says distractedly. She gives him a quick kiss on the cheek to reinforce that she is doing great.

“You didn’t have a guess for the next Wheel of Fortune letter,” he says.

_(“jeopardy night!” jake exclaims, practically bouncing on the couch. she grins and doesn’t even complain about how he’s spilled popcorn on the coffee table. she likes jeopardy much more than wheel of fortune, but neither of them need to know that.)_

“Just tired, sorry,” Amy says. She throws in a yawn for good measure.

 

* * *

 

The second the door closes behind them, all the air rushes out of him.

He steps forward, looking around the apartment like he doesn’t recognize it. Something feels like it’s caught in Amy’s throat when she speaks up.

“I, uh, washed your sheets and everything,” she says hesitantly, and manages to coax out a breathless laugh before Jake’s expression sobers again. He sits down on the couch in the spot he always does, Amy settling in next to him and reaching over for her favorite fluffy blankets. “Do you…do you want to talk?”

Jake lets out a shuddering breath, starts to speak, and chokes back a sob.

“I’m making us tea,” Amy says decisively. “Nakatomi Plaza mug and everything.”

He follows her wordlessly to the kitchen, blanket wrapped around his shoulders. She immediately recalls every time she’s told him to shut up, joking or otherwise, and it occurs to her that she hadn’t considered what it might actually be like if he didn’t speak. Instead, she hums an old Spanish song quietly, one her mother used to sing to her when she couldn’t sleep. She doesn’t quite know the words to it, but it’s comforting nonetheless. Jake offers her an attempt at a smile and takes the mug from her like he’s afraid he’s going to break it.

“Don’t take this, as, like, a move or anything, I know you’re still dating Teddy, but I—I don’t think I can sleep alone tonight,” he says softly, and Amy feels something in her chest constrict.

“It’s okay,” she says, and they sit down on the couch, hands cupped around their mugs, and everything is warm around them, and Jake is still a little too broken but Amy will hold him together as best as she can.

 

* * *

 

“I did some things, Amy. Like, I know that sounds like a super cool dramatic action movie line, but I did, and it…it was _real_.”

“Jake,” she whispers, her voice breaking, and she doesn’t hesitate before she wraps her arms around him and lets him lean his head against her shoulder. He’s one of her best friends, there’s no point denying it anymore. And she’s Amy Santiago, who’s always had everything under control, and she _hates_ how useless she feels. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs.

“Don’t apologize,” Jake replies, with a half-hearted bark of laughter he abandons quickly after realizing it isn’t convincing. “I hurt people. I don’t know why I’m not the one being tried for murder.”

“You had to,” she says. She doesn't know what else to say, except for the fact that Jake Peralta deserves the world.

“That’s what they told themselves, too.”

“You’re a good person, Jake,” she says with a quiet certainty. She feels him exhale shakily, his breath skittering across her collarbone, and she rests her cheek against his curly hair, and Amy sleeps the best she has since Jake left.

 

* * *

 

The apartment is empty when Amy unlocks the door and steps inside. It’s not like she didn’t know Jake was going out tonight, it’s just that—well, if he hadn’t gone out, she could’ve canceled on Teddy again. No, _postponed_ is the right word. On some level, Amy knows that it’s slightly problematic that she’d been hoping to use Jake as an excuse to not spend time with her boyfriend. _Especially_ after Jake’s confessions. Not for the first time, she regrets telling Teddy about those. Once again, she chooses to ignore the implications of that.

And she’s worried about Jake. He’s going to Shaw’s, which is somewhere familiar, at least, but she knows how he gets. She remembers a stakeout a couple weeks ago where he’d told her about a night in a bar, a gun pressed into his hand, a hidden back room, a nineteen year old boy caught in the wrong business. Shaw’s is home, but it’s still a bar filled with loud crowds and the sharp bite of alcohol in the air.

She’s allowed to be worried about her friend, she reasons to herself.

Teddy seems to think otherwise.

“It’s not fair to me, Amy,” he says, when she picks up the phone for the fifth time in the last hour since he’s been over. “You can’t keep saying you’re confused about how you feel whenever Jake confesses to you, and you need to let him live his own life.”

Amy sighs and forces herself to turn the phone over so she can’t see the screen. She knows he’s right, and hates that she of all people is doing this. She’s supposed to be the rational one. All cool and composed and everything. “I’m sorry,” she says, finally. “You’re right. And I love you, and I’m sorry for being a mess lately.”

She presses a kiss to his jaw and he relaxes, wrapping an arm around her. “I’m sorry too. I know you’re worried about him, but Jake can take care of himself.”

Amy decides not to bring up how Jake’s breakfasts consist of almost pure sugar, or on a more serious note, the midnight walks he’s been taking recently. Besides, he wanted to go out tonight. He’ll be _fine._

 

* * *

 

 

**Today** 3:47 PM

_She’s a lawyer, Kylie._

_A DEFENSE ATTORNEY_

Amy emphasizes _defense attorney_ , in case Kylie doesn’t get the gravity of the situation. Which she probably doesn’t, seeing as she isn’t a police officer.

_We don’t like defense attorneys on principle._

_we don’t like boring guys who only want to talk about beer and jazz either_

Amy feels herself flush bright red. Her fingers hover over the keyboard, though she can’t come up with a reply. The three little dots start up again. Kylie seems to have picked up that Amy has no response.

_just let him be happy_

_idk why you’re upset anyway_

_you have teddy_

She sighs, and then manages to simultaneously slam her knee into her desk and drop her phone on the floor when Jake calls her name.

“Hey, easy,” he says, the flicker of a smile on his lips. “What was that?”

“You scared me,” Amy mumbles. More like she lost at least ten years off her lifespan. “What did you want?”

“I need an opinion. Black or brown leather jacket? This is what Sophia’s wearing.”

He slides his phone across to her desk to show her Sophia’s outfit. She glances up at him to see him smiling fondly at the picture, eyes all warm melted chocolate.

_(“where were you last night?” she asks, when the front door swings open and jake walks in with a soft grin on his face. “i met this girl,” he says, beaming even wider, and amy can’t bring herself to look at him.)_

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Mrs. Santiago!” Jake exclaims, smiling toothily and peering over Amy’s shoulder from behind the couch. “How are you? Those empanadas you sent over were really good.”

“I’ll keep that in mind next time I make some,” she says, laughing. “I hope you’re doing well, Jake.”

Jake nods, leaning closer to Amy so he can see the phone better. Amy shifts away slightly only because she finds it weird that Jacob Peralta is having a conversation with her _mother,_ not because she is acutely aware of the distance between them. “Oh yeah, I’m great. Me and Ames solved a case a couple da—”

“Ames and I,” she corrects absentmindedly, noting the use of the nickname and the whole, you know, _talking to her mom_ thing. Teddy hasn’t even met her mom. _Teddy,_ her _boyfriend._ She thinks about what that might be like. It would probably include a monologue on Pilsners. She shudders and thanks whatever forces up there that have prevented Teddy from meeting her family thus far.

Jake is still talking. “—yeah, so, we solved that, and then you brought over empanadas, which was perfect timing, really, oh and also my girlfriend Sophia really loved them, so.”

“Jake, stop making my mom like you more than she likes me,” Amy says, and takes the phone back from Jake. She hadn’t even realized he’d taken it in the first place.

“People can’t help it, have you seen this face?” Jake asks, pointing at himself and then shooting her finger guns. “See ya, Mrs. Santiago!” he adds, before disappearing into his room.

“Sorry about that,” she says, slightly mortified.

Camila shrugs, watching her with that serene, all-knowing look that she always has. “Are you happy, _mija?”_

She _is,_ she thinks, and it doesn’t take her long to realize why her mother is asking _._ She is happy with Teddy, who is stable and certain and has always been there for her. In fact, seeing as she seems to have started, she makes a list.

_Reasons Why Teddy Wells Is A Good Boyfriend:_

  * _He listens to me_


  * _He has good manners_


  * _He waited for me after the Jake confession incidents_


  * _He picks good date spots_


  * _He doesn’t make dangerous spontaneous decisions_



 

* * *

 

It’s one in the morning, and Amy can’t sleep. She sighs heavily and reaches over to flick on the lamp on her nightstand and pull out the pad of sticky notes she keeps stored in her drawer for emergencies, because she’s prepared like that. She doesn’t even know why she’s so hung up on this that it’s interfering with her seven hours of sleep, which she’s definitely going to miss the next time they have a big case.

It’s stupid. But she remembers Terry telling her about his therapist when he’d been cleared to go out into the field again, and she figures that writing her thoughts down can’t hurt.

_Reasons Why It’s A Bad Idea To Like Jake Peralta:_

  * _He’s loud_


  * _He makes jokes at bad times_


  * _He’s a mess_


  * _He has a girlfriend_


  * _He makes spontaneous decisions_



Amy stares at the list and sighs. It needs amending.

  * _~~He’s loud~~ I’m worried if he isn’t being loud_


  * ~~_He makes jokes at bad times_~~ _He makes me laugh_


  * ~~_He’s a mess_~~ _He cleans up when I’m having a bad day_


  * _He has a girlfriend_


  * _He makes spontaneous decisions_ _because he’s a good detective_



She crumples up the sticky note and throws it in the trash.

 

* * *

 

Jake looks so earnest when he talks about her. Sophia, that is. Amy can safely admit, purely from an objective standpoint, that he’s sweet, and thoughtful, and inviting her upstate to a nice bed and breakfast is something she can’t see Teddy doing, so she tells him as much.

Well. There was that one rose-flavored Pilsners attempt that had to count for romantic and spontaneous. No, it was rose- _infused._ He had been quite adamant about that bit. She’d pretended to like it so much she wanted to save it for later, which meant sneaking it into her purse to give to Jake when she got home. Jake raises his eyebrows at her from across their desks, and she doesn’t have to ask to know that he’s thinking about the same incident.

“I’ll see you in the car,” she finally says, because he keeps giving her that look that’s simultaneously amused and sad, and she doesn’t know what to make of it.

 

* * *

 

The trip upstate explodes in her face spectacularly, which is par for the course when it comes to her and Jake, really.

“So how’d it go with Sophia?” Amy asks, because she’s a good friend. Jake grins and she regrets all her decisions, as usual.

“Good, we made up, we’re still together,” he says, and she glances in the rearview mirror to see the perp they’d picked up staring determinedly out the window, like he’s not listening to any of this. She bites her tongue to hold back a hysterical laugh and turns her attention back to Jake. “I told her, you know, everything between you and me is in the past, and we’re just friends.”

Jake doesn’t look at her, which is probably for the best since he’s driving, but she can’t help but feel a little bit disappointed. But he looks happy, and Amy knows that no matter what, that’s what she wants for him.

_(because she remembers nights after he came home where she’s found jake sitting on the roof of their apartment building, his dark figure sharply defined against the lights of the city. and on those nights, there is always a hollowness in his eyes, an emptiness that she has never seen when he is with sophia.)_

So she swallows the hurt and shoots back at him with that easy banter they have always had, and at least she knows that with Jake, things will always end up okay.

 

* * *

 

“Are you eating my candy?”

Amy freezes, the pack of gummy worms in her hands. Her back is to the door of the kitchen, so she can’t see his expression. “Um.”

Jake snorts, coming up behind her to pluck a worm out of the bag. “Amy Santiago. Never thought you’d be one to steal.”

“I got bored,” she offers weakly, pushing the candy in his direction. “You can have it back.”

Sometimes, somehow, she manages to forget that her friends are all detectives. Jake narrows his eyes, taking the gummy worms from her slowly. His gaze remains carefully trained on hers. “You have a terrible poker face,” he informs her, and her stupid blood decides to rush to her cheeks. “You looked for candy because you were stopping yourself from doing something else.”

“I got stressed and wanted to smoke,” she gets out, quickly. Jake doesn’t look disappointed, like she expected. It warms something in her chest that she doesn’t want to look too closely at.

“Well, gummy worms are just the cure,” he says, grinning and passing the bag back to her. “Unless you want to try a Peralta specialty?”

“If you offer me a Fruit Roll-Up filled with Skittles, that’s a no,” Amy says, shuddering a little at the thought. He laughs at that and it almost makes her feel better.

“I was gonna offer to listen if you wanted to tell me anything, but now that you mention it, we _do_ have Fruit Roll-Ups and Skittles. Just give me one second?”

“Please do not make one,” she says flatly. She bites back a smile and meets his gaze, surprisingly fond. Amy swallows a bit dryly and pushes the candy to the side, mentally running through every interaction she’s ever had with Jake and wondering when he’d figured out exactly how to calm her down. She supposes it might be a package deal with the roommates-and-workmates bit; working with someone and coming home to live with them added up to a lot of time spent around each other in every mood possible.

Jake listens to her ramble about some case she’s been working on with his eyes intently focused on hers, and for a second she sees it, so painfully clear: coming home to Jake after a long day, having dinner together and talking about their day—all of which she already has now, but this time she _sees_ it, like it’s something she’s going to have for the rest of her life.

She lets the thought linger for just a moment longer, and then she focuses back on the Jake she has with her here and now, and if her fantasy is just a fantasy, at least for now she has this.

 

* * *

 

“Jake, what did I tell you. The seminar on conflict resolution was useful after all!” she exclaims triumphantly, not waiting for the door to close behind him. “Yours truly managed to get Gina to give Charles’s dad her blessing. The Boyle-Linetti wedding is a go. If she says yes, of course. I’m telling you, you should take a look at this binder—”

“I might need it,” Jake says, and Amy beams proudly at him before she takes in his expression. Slumped shoulders, tired eyes. His hands are fidgeting. He steps out of his shoes and stuffs his hands into his pockets when he follows Amy’s gaze.

“Jake,” she says softly, and then she doesn’t know what to say.

“Sophia broke up with me because I told her I loved her,” he says. His voice is surprisingly steady.

Amy grips the Conflict Resolution Binder a little bit tighter. She resists the urge to flip through it. She knows no words can fix this.

“I’m sorry,” she offers anyway, and Jake’s eyes soften just a little.

 

* * *

 

Hospitals are too quiet, Amy has decided.

Jake is asleep, heart rate pulsating steadily on the monitor, the low hum of the machines surrounding him filling the room. She pulls her phone out of her pocket and scrolls through Spotify to find one of Jake’s playlists. She’s expecting Taylor Swift, or maybe Backstreet Boys, but instead she finds _La Vie En Rose_ drifting softly from her phone speakers.

He’d been brought in for a gunshot wound; he’d lost a lot of blood, but was otherwise doing fine. Amy’s still mad at herself for not getting there in time. At least she’d gotten the perp. She sighs and turns her attention back to her phone, perusing the playlist she’d randomly clicked on. The rest of Jake’s playlists are named things like _Jamz_ and _Stakeoutz_ and various other words ending with a z. This one, the one that’s currently transitioning from _La Vie En Rose_ to _Moon River_ , is labeled with just a period _._

Amy glances up at Jake, breathing evenly, a peaceful expression on his face. Sometimes she forgets how long she’s known him. Somehow the Jake Peralta who was perfectly willing to blast Backstreet Boys for a whole two hour stakeout in their second year of partnership has become the Jake Peralta asleep in front of her who has a playlist dedicated to quiet love songs. The opening guitar strums of _Hey There Delilah_ take over, and Amy can’t help but smile.

There’s something about this moment that feels so wholeheartedly _right,_ and Amy leans back in her chair and lets herself exhale a long breath, feeling strangely more content than she has in a while.

Her phone rings. It’s Karen Peralta. She doesn’t remember when she got her number, but.

“Captain Holt called me,” Mrs. Peralta says. “You’re with him?”

“Yeah, he’s doing well,” Amy reassures her, gaze flickering over to Jake. “He needed a blood transfusion. He’s just sleeping now.”

“Thank you for being there for him,” Karen says. “Not just at the hospital,” she adds, after a pause.

Jake shifts before Amy can think of a response. “He’s waking up,” Amy tells Karen. “Do you want to talk to him?”

“You can go ahead,” she says. “I’ll drop by later. Thank you, Amy, really.”

The call ends. Jake clears his throat and tries for a grin. “Yikes.”

“Yeah, _yikes_ ,” Amy says, scooting her chair closer so she can lightly punch his shoulder. Jake reaches out to tap his fist against her arm in return. “Sorry I didn’t get to you sooner.”

“S’okay, Ames,” he says. “Least you got him.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

His eyes are a bright, bright brown in the fluorescent lights of the hospital room. Amy swallows a bit dryly and glances away. He’s still watching her when she looks back at him.

“You stayed here the whole time?”

“Of course I did,” she murmurs. “Someone has to drive you home.”

“I can drive,” he protests, without any real force in his voice. He tries to sit up and winces. “Okay, maybe you were right.”

“I should get that on the record,” she says, grinning and reaching over for the button to push his hospital bed into a sitting position. She can tell it still hurts for him to move; he’s biting his bottom lip and his expression has sobered slightly. He smiles brightly at her once he’s seated upright, though, and there is an unnamed emotion that transpires across the gaze they hold for just a second too long.

_(“romantic stylez,” jake says, quiet but certain, and amy can’t decide if she wants to laugh or cry.)_

The strum of a ukulele fades out, her phone still playing Jake’s music. Amy breathes out, slowly, and then she looks away.

 

* * *

 

It shouldn’t be a big deal.

“Will you, Jacob Peralta, accept this ring and bring it with me to our weird friends’ parents’ wedding?” Amy asks,the asphalt rough against her knee. It’s _not_ a big deal, she amends mentally, putting the ring on Jake’s finger.

Flirting with Jake is not making things weird, she tells herself, even when he announces “Yes, a thousand times yes!” and beams at her so brightly a passerby might actually think they just got engaged in an alley next to a dumpster.

And it isn’t weird at the actual wedding, when everyone is dancing, and Amy tells Jake that she knows someone who’d want to slow dance with him. It’s not weird, because she did actually promise Gina’s great-aunt Susan she’d get her a dance with Jake. Except she doesn’t break eye contact with him when he twirls Susan onto the dance floor, and she swears that there is a longing in the look he gives her.

She’s nursing a glass of champagne when he leaves the dance floor. He’d danced with Gina for one of the throwback songs he’d begged her to put on the playlist, and then he’d challenged Terry to a dance battle. A grin lights up his face when she looks up at him like she’s just noticed him walking over, like she hasn’t been stealing glances at him every few seconds.

“Champagne,” he drawls in his self-proclaimed sexy voice, from a bus ride that feels so long ago. Amy chuckles lightly and scoots her chair over a little so he can sit down next to her. “D’you want me to set you up with one of Charles’s great-uncles?”

She pretends to consider it for a moment, sipping on her champagne and then offering her glass to Jake before responding. “Unfortunately, I’d have to turn down that offer,” she says, sighing regrettably. “I’d hate to step on their toes.”

Jake laughs, shaking his head and looking downward. The song switches to something soft and slow that is probably overplayed at every single wedding ever, and Jake keeps his gaze directed at the ground. It’s late, and most of the guests have filtered out. There are only a handful of couples left on the dance floor, all slow dancing and looking like they’re in their own world. Amy swallows a bit dryly before turning away from her survey of the room and focusing back on Jake, who is watching her with eyes bright and intent.

“I’m not one of Charles’s great-uncles, but, uh. We could dance, if you wanted to,” Jake offers,

It suddenly feels like Jake is the only person in the room. The only person that matters, at least. His eyes flicker across her face and Amy cannot breathe.

“I—it’s late,” she gets out. Her chest feels tight, though that might have to do with the whole not breathing thing. “And, um. Alcohol and dancing? Not—not a great idea. For me. The whole—physical coordination thing.”

“Right,” Jake says, after a short pause, and then he goes back to staring at the floor.

 

* * *

 

Out of habit, Amy considers a handful of insults that she could throw at him. She takes a breath, and then something shifts ever so slightly, and instead of yelling through the wall between their rooms like she normally does, she gets up and knocks on his door before cracking it open.

“Hey.”

“Hi?” He looks up at her from where he’s sitting cross-legged on his bed, his guitar in his lap.

“I just wanted—” She’s not actually entirely sure why she’s here. “Um. I wanted to tell you, you sound really good. I didn’t know you could actually play.”

A grin splits his face. “What, you thought I bought a guitar just so I could annoy people during interrogations?”

“Honestly, yes.”

Jake laughs, setting his guitar down on the bed next to him. “Fair. You wanna play?”

“What?”

“Guitar,” Jake says slowly, pointing at the instrument. “G-u-i-t-a-r. Unfortunately, spelling it out is as far as I can go. I can’t speak binary.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Amy tells him, but she sits next to him anyway, taking the guitar into her hands. Jake shifts a little to give her space, but he’s still close enough that his shoulder is bumping against hers. She’s incredibly aware of this fact. “You know, I learned to play guitar because three of my brothers play and I wanted to be better than them,” she says lightly, fingers resting on the strings as her other hand shifts from chord to chord, settling into the familiar positions

“Were you?” Jake asks. His fingers drum softly atop the mattress as she picks out the opening bars of _Can’t Help Falling in Love._

“Nah. I only learned this one song because Antonio wanted to sing it to his girlfriend to ask her to prom. There was a solid month where he would get anxious whenever he heard it.”

“Amy Santiago,” Jake gasps, scandalized. Amy laughs and elbows him in the side. “I never would have taken you for such a bully.” He nudges her back playfully, and then she genuinely stops breathing for a full five seconds because he rests his head on her shoulder.

She forces herself to let out a slow breath. Jake doesn’t move. “You gonna play or not, Santiago?”

“Shut up,” she advises him. He does, but she feels more than hears his low hum against her shoulder as she plays. His breath is warm, ghosting across the crook of her neck.

“Not bad, Ames, not bad,” he says quietly. Amy’s breath lodges somewhere in her chest when Jake looks up at her and smiles so brightly she might cry.

 

* * *

 

“I'm back!” Amy yells, stepping into the apartment and slipping out of her shoes. She hears his bedroom door swing open as she hangs her purse on the hook on the wall, and by the time she turns around she finds him standing by the kitchen, looking at her with his head tilted to the side. She nods at his unspoken question and follows him, claiming her usual seat on top of the counter. It’s his turn to make their tea, and she watches him quietly while he does that.

“So,” Jake says, focusing intently on blowing into his mug. “How was the thing with Majors?”

“Get this,” she says. “I thought we were just going to celebrate the case. He thought it was a date!”

“Right,” Jake says slowly. “And you were not into that because…he’s so muscular and in command of his finances?”

Amy snorts, and then she remembers the conclusion she’d come to while sitting there trying to process the fact that A, _the_ Detective Dave Majors just tried to ask her out, and B, she rejected him. She forces herself to look at Jake. Really look at him. She’s known since the wedding, she thinks, that this would have to happen eventually, but she takes in Jake’s face for a moment, open and sincere, and wishes she were just a little more powerless to stop her next words. “After everything that happened with Teddy and all the cops I know who go out and break up and then still have to work together, it’s just too messy.”

Jake murmurs a quiet _oh_ that settles sharply between her ribs. She barrels on despite it all. “I don’t date cops,” she declares firmly. She ignores the way Jake’s face falls for all of two seconds before he meets her eyes and smiles a smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes. It doesn’t mean anything. It can’t. Not after what she’s just said.

“Cool,” Jake starts, “cool, cool.” His voice cracks a little.

 

* * *

 

“Peralta, Santiago. Go home.”

There’s something to be said about the fact that Amy doesn’t look up from her work to address even Captain Holt, of all people. “We’re going to solve it, Captain,” she says, voice worn out but firm. She doesn’t need to look up to know that Jake is nodding in agreement.

Holt glances back and forth between the two of them. The weight of his gaze rests heavily on the back of her neck as she stares at the file, the pictures of the crime scene, the bags of evidence sprawled out between her and Jake’s desks. She wants this, wants to do _right_ by this victim, and she wills the captain to see it too.

_(“we’re gonna get him, ames,” jake promises. his voice strikes her with its sincerity. it is the same way he speaks when he reassures charles that he is his best friend, when he swears to captain holt that he’ll do better, when he tells amy, so wholeheartedly earnest, eyes wide and brown and hesitant, “sometimes our job sucks. but it sucks a little less when i get to do it with you.”)_

“Very well. But I expect you to prevent your resulting lack of sleep from interfering with your morning shifts. Good night, detectives.”

“Night, Cap!” Jake calls cheerfully, grinning and blowing him a kiss. Holt stares at him blankly before walking away. Jake pouts at him until the elevator doors close behind him.

“You’re ridiculous,” Amy says, shaking her head. Jake snorts softly, catching her eye and holding her gaze for a beat before smiling and looking away. He’s been doing that a lot lately. The lack of a comeback disarms her.

She would never tell him this, but working a case with Jake might be one of her absolute favorite things in the world. It is quiet, mostly, unless they talk themselves through a scene or one of them points the other to a piece of evidence they’ve overlooked. They move to the break room when the night shift arrives, and the couch is so comfortable Amy can’t help but lean back and close her eyes for a second.

“Ames,” Jake murmurs, his thumb rubbing gentle circles into her shoulder. “Hey.”

“Gonna solve it, don’t worry,” she mumbles, blinking up at him. His smile is impossibly soft. If she could hold it in her hands, it would be reminiscent of petting a puppy, she thinks.

“I know you are,” he reassures her. “But you can solve it tomorrow. We’re going home.”

She is too tired to argue, letting him gather up their things and deposit her jacket in her hands and lead her to her car, because she drove them both here today. She moves towards the driver’s seat on instinct, but Jake raises an eyebrow at her and she relents, getting into the passenger side instead. “It’s my car,” she protests halfheartedly.

“You’re falling asleep.”

“I’m fine now,” she insists. And she is. She’s not as sleepy as she was, which makes her wonder just how long Jake let her sleep.

“You should be, I let you get a whole 90 minute cycle,” Jake grins, and there is a sudden warm rush of affection that floods her chest.

“Thank you,” she says, as sincerely as possible, and his eyes are that same melted deep brown under the streetlights as they were that night outside the precinct so long ago, and Amy Santiago thinks that maybe she likes him _romantic stylez,_ too.

 

* * *

 

Amy had never really understood the concept of tension being a tangible, solid _thing,_ the kind of tension that one might describe as thick enough to be cut by a knife. As it turns out, you just need to kiss someone who you’ve liked for what feels like forever three times in less twenty four hours, and then get in a car with them to drive back home to your shared apartment.

She makes an impulsive decision. Jake, she’s noticed, tends to have that effect on her.

“If we go home right now I might actually go insane,” she informs him. Jake huffs out a breath and grins tightly at her.

“Yeah. Um. I would probably go panic in my room, or something…less…pathetic.”

She laughs nervously. “Right. Yeah. Can I—there’s something—just…trust me?”

“Yeah,” Jake says, and she’s not entirely sure if he gets it but he looks a little more relaxed, at least. It’s the reassurance that he isn’t the only one who’s absolutely terrified, she figures, because that’s certainly how she feels right now.

So Amy drives, and then keeps driving, and Jake is looking around curiously but he doesn’t say anything. The sun is setting over the Atlantic. Golden light illuminates Jake’s face, tracing his jawline, sharply defined; the curl of hair by his ear; his lips, which Amy resolutely does not think about.

“We’re going to the beach,” Amy says, when she realizes she should maybe explain where she’s taking them. “I come out here sometimes after a bad case.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that was a _bad_ case,” Jake says wryly, and Amy rolls her eyes but he’s not wrong. The sun is mostly below the horizon when she parks the car; she gets the extra blankets that she always keeps in the back for times like this, and when they walk down to the shoreline Jake’s face is lit with faded lavender, his cheeks painted with a dusty rose, and the sky is every color in between.

“Light and breezy,” Amy murmurs, when she’s sitting next to Jake, wrapped in a blanket, the Chinese takeout they had picked up when they were originally planning to go home emptied out in front of them.

“The weather?”

She snorts softly. “No. I mean, us. That’s how I wanted us to happen.”

“Oh. Cool. Cool cool cool—”

“I don’t think we can do that.”

“Oh,” Jake says, even more heavily than he had at first. It isn’t followed by a string of _cool, cool, cool._

“I mean,” Amy starts, and then she stops, because she doesn’t quite know how to put it into words. The feeling that Jake is somehow simultaneously nothing like what she wants and absolutely everything that she wants, that is. “I mean, God, Jake, we live together already, we’re practically—” _married,_ she thinks, but the word lodges itself uncomfortably in her chest, “—a couple, and I’ve known you for years, and—”

“Yeah,” he cuts her off, softly. There are stars in the sky, now. “Yeah, I know, Ames. Me too.”

“So, screw light and breezy?”

“Screw light and breezy,” Jake echoes confidently.

“I really wanna kiss you,” Amy confides, “but the constellations are out and—”

“ _God,_ Ames,” Jake whispers, breathlessly.

And then he is kissing her for the fourth time (she’ll have to stop counting soon, she thinks) and he smiles against her lips, the upward curve of his mouth pressed against hers, and when they part, Jake’s eyes are lit by the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments always appreciated :)


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